


McLaren Unboxed | The Papaya Boys | #2020

by legolasass (scuderiafiatpanda)



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn, or more like: teammates toppling sideways into friendship but also UST but also feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22636354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scuderiafiatpanda/pseuds/legolasass
Summary: Their little moment in the garage ends up in the new Unboxed episode and Lando’s brain almost sets itself on fire trying to figure out what exactly he should be panicking about. The fact that him and Carlos are so obviously having Moments in the way they’re leaning into each other’s space, capital-letter Moments—or the fact that Henrik, the little shit, shamelessly uses them as fodder for an ever-growing audience hungry for papaya bromance content.(snippets from the papaya boys and their 2020 season)
Relationships: Lando Norris/Carlos Sainz Jr
Comments: 47
Kudos: 112





	McLaren Unboxed | The Papaya Boys | #2020

**Author's Note:**

> (October 2020) it feels rude not to leave a warning, so: **this story is unfinished and most likely going to stay that way.** I'm sorry about it because it was my baby for a really long time but, well. Maybe you can still enjoy the bits that I poured into the void, or maybe you're going to turn around and leave, which is okay. Proceed at your own risk.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Some time ago I promised myself I’d never write fanfic about real people, and yet here we are and this is my life now. Written for all of you who’ve made me laugh or cry or both with your stories over the last months, you know who you are <3 
> 
> (edit in March 2020: I really couldn't have predicted what this year would have in store for us when I outlined this lmao. So it's officially set in an alternative 'verse. Here's a reminder to wash your hands.) 
> 
> And of course, this is entirely fictional, so please keep it where it belongs (ao3), don’t post it anywhere else (twitter, tumblr, etc.) and don’t get it anywhere near the people mentioned in here.

* * *

**WOKING, UNITED KINGDOM, FEBRUARY 2020**

* * *

Lando has ninety-nine problems and having a hot Spanish teammate with flawless skin and incredible hair are ninety-eight of them.

_I don’t deserve this, _ he thinks, _I’m a good human being and I really don’t deserve this. _

He glances at Carlos who’s swivelling his chair in lazy circles, tapping a ballpoint pen against his teeth and paying about as much attention to the ongoing meeting as Lando does. Which is to say, not very much.

(That’s not entirely true. Carlos _did _take notes in the beginning, filling page after page with sloppy, messy handwriting, nodding and asking questions and pointing out things and generally being Way More Interested Than His Sleep-Deprived Teammate. Lando simply set the recorder on his phone, crossed his arms and tried his best not to fall asleep and faceplant on the table. One of them is really going for that ‘McLaren Employee of the Month’ badge. Hint: it’s not Lando.)

_ Only Carlos fucking Sainz can make chewing on a pen look like he’s modelling for stupidly expensive stationery. It should look gross. Why the hell doesn’t it look gross? _

Carlos catches his gaze, stops his chair mid-swivel and wiggles his eyebrows. Lando bites down on his tongue, hard, and looks away before he does something stupid, like break into a fit of giggles in front of the important grown-ups who are one hysteric teenage breakdown away from ending his career and chances at a future in F1.

(For the record: Lando might do stupid things, but he’s not a total idiot.)

(He knows that the fact he’s twenty and by definition not a real teenager anymore will do nothing in his favours when Zak and the board decide they’re done financing a kid who can’t get his shit together because he’s too busy hiding the fact he’s been having a boner for his hot Spanish teammate for the past fourteen months.)

His sleep-deprived brain mostly functions on autopilot today but it’s awake enough to underline his thoughts with a sad montage complete with a depressing soundtrack: the way Andreas will pat his head, saying, _it was nice working with you, kiddo, _in that fake, upbeat voice you use with people you pretend to like but secretly want to get a parking ticket when they’re just stopping for five minutes to sprint down the road to the pharmacy; the way they’ll cast him out of the McLaren Technology Centre in the middle of the night when it’s raining like crazy, how he’ll have to drag his bags down the driveway next to the lake, hair clinging to his face and pathetic sobs wrecking his frame.

They’ll sign up someone else, someone less hyper and disastrous and not one step away from a catastrophe at any given time.

Maybe Giovi. He’s a good guy. Nice, funny, easy-going. Zero percent teenage drama and one-hundred, laser-focused percent on getting the job done. Why people aren’t lining up all the way to Vietnam to beg Antonio on their knees to join their team is a real mystery.

Also, he has great hair.

Like, _really great hair. _

Like, _ they could do a model photoshoot with Antonio and Carlos showing off the McLaren merch and those stupid orange jackets would be sold out within five minutes _ type of great hair.

A paper plane hits Lando’s face.

He yelps and quickly covers it up with a cough when heads turn in his direction and eyebrows rise to meet hairlines.

One the other side of the table, Carlos snickers.

Lando shoots him a murderous glance. Carlos just cocks his eyebrows and swivels forward in his chair, innocently facing Khalid again who’s pointing at various diagrams on the whiteboard and explaining . . . _something _Lando stopped paying attention to fifteen minutes ago.

He coughs once more for good measure, gently brushes the paper plane into his lap, unfolds it and smooths it out against his thigh.

(He feels like a twelve-year-old trading secret notes in school. _Do you like me? Circle Yes or No. _Ah, yes, the good ol’ times, when all you had to do for a functioning love life was picking up a pencil. Lando misses the good ol’ times.)

It’s a drawing of a dinosaur. Well, no. It’s a misshapen _attempt _ of a drawing of a dinosaur. Lando only recognises what it’s supposed to be because Carlos wrote an explanation. For the record: Carlos is absolute _shit _at drawing. The dinosaur has a head that looks like a watermelon wearing glasses and Lando’s not sure if there’s some deeper iconography behind that. Or if it was intentional in the first place.

In the corner of the paper, Carlos’s scrawl reads: _Andreasaurus. _

Lando ducks his head and presses his hand against his mouth, but the laughter is already there, bubbling to the surface, tickling his fingers. He manages to turn it into another cough at the very last second, earning various sighs around the table, a pointed look from Khalid and a smug smile from Carlos, who’s glancing at him over his shoulder, pen between his teeth.

He has the audacity to wink, the stupid bastard.

Lando’s fighting to keep a straight face. He smiles at Khalid, hoping it looks angelic rather than _ I’m actually holding my breath in an attempt not to burst out laughing so I might possibly die of lack of oxygen in the next five minutes. _ When Khalid turns back to his diagrams, Lando grabs a pen off the table and sets out to draw another dinosaur on the back of Carlos’s note.

He titles it: _Tyrannosaurus Zak. _

The meeting drags on for another twenty minutes. Lando spends the rest of the time giving Tyrannosaurus Zak a cool hat and some really sick cowboy boots.

He’s humming the tune of _Once Upon a Time in the West _under his breath when they’re finally being released. Carlos waits for him at the door and raises a questioning eyebrow. Lando shrugs. People file past them with the single-minded intent of grabbing food and caffeine for the long afternoon filled with debriefs and analyses still looming before them.

“Your dinosaur looked pathetic and lonely,” says Lando, falling into step beside Carlos, “so I drew him a friend.”

He chucks the refolded paper plane at Carlos, who plucks it out of the air with ease. (Of course, the smooth bastard.)

Carlos keeps laughing all the way to the cafeteria.

* * *

“Javier,” says Carlos, “we need you to do us a favour.”

(With the tone he’s using, he might as well have said: _your Queen and country need you. _Lando might’ve re-watched a couple James-Bond-movies lately. He might’ve had some thoughts involving Carlos, suits and guns.)

“No,” says Javier.

“Pretty please,” says Lando. “It’s just a small favour. Tiny. You’ll have to search it with a magnifying glass, really.”

_“No,” _ says Javier, with emphasis.

“We brought muffins.” Carlos holds up the plate with decoratively arranged blueberry muffins they stole from the cafeteria as if that’s a valid argument.

Javier stares at the muffins for a hot second, then shakes his head.

“Hell, no. Do I have to remind you of the Christmas Catastrophe of ’19? Last time you two asked me for a _favour, _we ended up with a Christmas party incident everyone involved just wants to fucking bleach from their memory.”

They fall silent for a minute, privately mulling over the horror of the Christmas Catastrophe of ’19.

Sometimes, Lando wants to curse his vivid memory.

He perches on Javier’s desk, props his elbows on his knees and puts his chin on his hands. “C’mon. Buddy. _Please._”

Carlos wiggles the muffin plate in front of Javier’s face. “Look at these delicious little beasts.”

Javier buries his head in his hands. “I can’t believe that this is my life.” His voice sounds muffled. “Don’t you have like, more important shit to do? Debriefs? Some PR-stuff? Whatever?”

“We’re on lunchbreak, actually,” says Carlos, meeting Lando’s eyes over Javier’s head. He mouths, _three, two, one—_

“Okay.” Javier resurfaces with a sigh, looking like he’s regretting every single one of his life choices that led him to this point. “What do you need?”

Lando fumbles the paper plane from his pocket. It looks slightly battered, like it has been through some World-War-II-movie-worthy fights in the mess hall. He drops it on Javier’s drawing tablet.

“We have a concept for you,” Carlos explains patiently. “And now we need your graphic designer magic to make it look like we haven’t come up with it in five minutes during a debrief where we were supposed to be paying attention.”

“Basically,” says Lando, “we want you to play fairy godmother and sew our little drawing a pretty new dress for the ball.”

Javier unfolds the paper plane and stares at Tyrannosaurus Zak.

“This is so bad it’s actually working.” He rubs the bridge of his nose. “I want one of those muffins. I can’t tolerate your nonsense without a sugar high.”

* * *

By the end of pre-testing prep, random little dinosaur drawings are scattered all over the MTC.

* * *

**BARCELONA, SPAIN, FEBRUARY 2020**

* * *

“The commentators are gonna be having fun this year,” says Lando, slumping down on the couch next to Carlos and grabbing the first bottle of water he can reach. “With the two alphas on track.”

“Ah, it’s easy. They can just say Alfa Romeo and Toro-Rosso-or-whatever-the-fuck-they’re-called,” says Carlos, reaches for his salad bowl and a fork and puts them in front of Lando. “Eat this.”

Lando looks at him. “Why are you feeding me your leftover salad?”

Carlos shrugs. “You spent the whole morning in the car. You need sustenance.”

“Yes, mum.” Lando rolls his eyes but takes the bowl anyway. While he chews on a tomato and tries not to make a face, Carlos turns back to the stack of autograph cards and papaya orange McLaren hats he’s been signing.

(It’s not that Lando actively _hates _tomatoes. They’re great on pizza and stuff. But the raw ones have a weird, squishy texture and he doesn’t like the way they explode in his mouth without warning. When he tried to explain that, Carlos laughed. “You’re the pickiest eater I’ve ever met,” he said. “I have so much to teach you in the ways of culinary experiences, young padawan.”)

“Finished yet?” Lando makes a sweeping motion with his fork to encompass the mess of cards and random merch spread out on the table. Testing days tend to be boring—especially when you don’t even get to kill time in the car.

Carlos sighs and rubs his wrist. “I think I’ve seen three other boxes lying around.”

Lando empties his salad bowl, puts it down and pats Carlos’s head. “Poor Carlos.”

Carlos leans sideways and gently places his head on Lando’s shoulder. “I appreciate your sympathy. And that you are not letting me wallow in my misery alone.”

Warmth spreads from the point of contact between their bodies, seeping into Lando’s bones, making something soft and tiny flutter in his chest. He keeps very still. Holds his breath. Prays he manages to sound casual when he says, “we’re waiting for the track to be cleared after Seb’s little rendezvous with the barriers anyway. So, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands to pester my bored-as-fuck teammate.”

Carlos moves his head from Lando’s shoulder, taking all the warmth with him, and a small, insane part of Lando’s brain suggests leaning close again to chase that warmth. Lando tamps it down resolutely. _ Okay, okay, okay, calm down, brain. Let’s not quite go there, all right? Let’s pretend we still have some dignity left to preserve. _

Carlos fishes around the table for a pen and taps it against Lando’s nose, startling him out of his weird conversation with . . . himself? That self-conscious blob of white and grey matter inside his skull? “If you’re willing to help your bored-as-fuck teammate with these autographs, dinner tonight will be my treat.”

_Out of context, _ Lando thinks a little hysterically, _that would sound way different. _

The context is this: they have an understanding for their time spend in Barcelona. For as long as they are on Spanish territory, (if it even _counts _as Spanish territory, Lando thinks to himself, some Catalans would probably disagree) Carlos is allowed to tell Lando what to eat on seven (7) separate occasions and Lando is allowed to refuse only three (3) times.

“If you even _think _about making me eat some type of seafood,” Lando says, uncapping the pen and brandishing it like a sword (or, well, how he thinks brandishing a sword might look like, based on historically inaccurate movies),  “I’ll put wildly inappropriate things on your cards and they’ll make you sign new ones all over again.”

“Ah, no, I clearly can’t risk that.” Carlos grins. “We can’t let people find out you spend your free time drawing dicks all over my face, no?”

Lando tackles him and they end up in a mess of tangled limbs and breathless laughter on the floor, Carlos’s autographs scattered around them like confetti.

* * *

Lando needs to figure out three important things:

1\. How to bring home results that are good enough for McLaren to renew his contract for another year.

2\. How to handle Carlos’s stupid jokes and his beautiful laughter and his flawless skin and his incredible hair and the way Lando’s name rolls off his tongue with that _accent_ that sets Lando’s nerves on fire and all the casual touching that’s going on between them and—

3\. How to act straight. Just. How to convince everyone he’s the human embodiment of _no homo. _Heterosexual dudes are doing it all the time, so it can’t be that hard, right? Right?

* * *

“There’s no need to glare at your plate like it has personally offended you,” says Carlos, leaning close to be heard over the cacophony of clinking glasses and laughter and people talking all over each other in at least seven different languages. “It’s one-hundred percent fish-free, I promise. You know tapas, right? They call this one _La Bomba._”

Lando takes his fork and pokes the ball of potato and meat. It doesn’t explode despite its name, or scurry away, or grow teeth and bite, which is reassuring.

“The shape was inspired by anarchist bombs from the civil war. And the brava sauce is meant to look like a pool of blood. That’s why it’s red.”

“That’s certainly . . . original.” Lando barely suppresses a shudder.

Carlos grins.

Lando dips the tips of his fork into the sauce and licks them clean. It’s—spicy. Like, _a lot. _Not in a bad way. More like, in an overwhelming way. Lando isn’t used to food with so much flavour. He likes his food to be bland and tasteless like any proper Englishman.

He starts coughing.

Carlos pats his back, still grinning, and nudges Lando’s glass of water within his reach. “You lasted almost a whole minute there, I have to give you credit for that.”

Lando empties the glass in one go and almost drowns himself in the process. He splutters, blindly fumbling for a napkin, and it takes a while until he’s able to breathe again. His lungs suck up the oxygen and tell him that he’s an idiot.

It’s only when he’s slowly coming back to his senses, that he realises that Carlos’s hand is still touching his back, curving around his right shoulder blade, sending waves of tingling warmth down Lando’s spine.

“You okay?”

Carlos is watching him intently and something sharp lodges itself in Lando’s throat that has nothing to do with the brava sauce.

“Yeah,” he says, and hopes that even though he feels like a hot mess, he’s not looking the part. “Yeah, ‘course. I’m fine.”

Carlos studies him for another second. Then, slowly, almost reluctantly, he removes his hand from Lando’s back.

Lando mourns the loss of warmth like he might mourn a missing limb.

(He clearly has his priorities straight, even if the rest of him is having trouble being that.)

Further down the table, Carlos’s mechanics launch into a fight about the best movie of the _Fast and Furious _franchise. Other people are joining soon enough, even though there clearly is only one right answer and these heathens are wasting their time.

_(Tokyo Drift, duh.) _

Almost the whole team has gathered around one long table the waiters were kind enough to assemble for them earlier, and it’s become a routine starting with their first evening in Barcelona to meet up in the hotel restaurant at the end of the day like some weird kind of Last Supper re-enactment—only with more women present and less alcohol and a definite lack of potential death by crucifixion looming over their heads.

Well.

Lando is currently eating a _bomb sitting in a pool of blood, _so they’re like, having the metal version of the Last Supper, he supposes.

Carlos is eating something that, admittedly, smells pretty freaking amazing, but also suspiciously looks like it has parts of dead octopus in it (or not-quite-so-dead octopus—that’s the thing with seafood, isn’t it, and why Lando avoids it like the plague: you never _know)._

“These heathens are wasting their time,” says Carlos, using his spoon in a vague gesture meant to encompass the _Fast and Furious _discourse that is, apparently, on the brink of getting physical. Jamie at least, one of Carlos’s mechanics, looks like he’s ready to throw fists. “There’s only one right answer.”

“I was thinking the exact same thing.”

“It’s _Furious 7._”

“I was not thinking the exact same thing.”

Lando might have to sign up for another teammate. Someone whose opinions on the franchise aren’t bordering on blasphemous. He should ask Andreas if they can switch Carlos with somebody else. Fernando, maybe. Or Carlos’s octopus dish. He really isn’t picky. He feels like even the octopus is bound to have a better taste in _Fast and Furious _movies.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m not.” Carlos puts his spoon down and crosses his arms. “I cried with that movie. I never cry with movies. It’s the biggest compliment I can give. It made me _feel_ things. Experience emotions. Lots of them.”

“But that’s not the point in any of these movies.” Lando is _so close _to throw up his hands in exasperation like an overworked housewife in the nineteenth century. _Good Lord in Heavens, Charlotte! This is a scandal! _“If you want to experience emotions, you need to watch whichever is the latest movie starring that emo guy from the Star Wars sequels. The _Fast and Furious _franchise is meant to provide that extra kick of adrenaline that comes from watching cars go really fast.”

Carlos’s mouth twitches. “Because that’s the extra kick we need.”

Lando manages to hold his gaze for two seconds before they burst into laughter.

“Speaking of cars going really fast,” Carlos says when he’s calmed down again, eyes crinkling, “what do you think of our baby this year?”

If Lando closes his eyes, he’s back at the circuit: he’s gunning a shell of papaya-orange carbon-fibre down the long straight before shifting to brake into La Caixa, the steering wheel vibrating underneath his fingertips like a living thing, the engine rumbling, screaming, roaring on the tarmac, a monster that has been caged for years finally set loose.

“She feels good.”

_“So _ good, right?”

They grin at each other like idiots.

It’s one of those moments Lando wishes he could keep in a mason jar. (And if that makes him sound like the type of guy who has colour-coordinated, seasonal Pinterest boards for the aesthetic, _so what?) _

He wants to keep all of it: the way Carlos looks at him with that grin that almost splits his face in half, that dangerous curve of his mouth that makes Lando want to reach out and _touch_ and do other impossible things. The way the team is sprawled out around them, talking and yelling and being a much cooler version of the Last Supper. The way Spanish food tends to annihilate his taste buds while also being incredibly delicious. The sound of clinking glasses and laughter and foreign languages hanging in the air.

_This, _ Lando thinks. The thought hits him out of the blue. _ I wouldn’t want to swap places with anyone else on the entire planet. I want this. _

“It’s going to be an amazing season,” says Carlos, raising his glass of water. “Just you wait.”

Lando raises his own, gently clinking it against Carlos’s. _This, this, this. _

* * *

**MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, MARCH 2020**

* * *

Lando fiddles with the zipper of his race overall, waiting for Jarv to stop flipping through notes on his tablet with his face scrunched up in concentration. When he finally locks the screen, Lando tilts his head and gives him a half-smile.

“I don’t think I can do this without you being my voice of reason out there.”

Jarv nudges his shoulder and laughs. “This goes into the top ten of nicest things that have been said to me on the job. Right up there with, ‘we finally replaced the godawful coffee machine in the break room.’” His eyes search Lando’s, holding his gaze, and Lando swallows because this situation is turning from joking to serious so fast it’s probably getting whiplash. “Kid, you don’t need my voice of reason to obliterate anyone else on track. You got this.”

The garage hums around them, the usual chaotic energy that comes with getting ready to pulverise several sets of expensive tyres and make numbers climb on tiny screens. It’s a noise echoing deep within Lando’s bones, setting his skin on fire.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to stick to the background.” Jarv grins. “You know, I’ve always wanted to be the evil mastermind pulling all the strings.”

“I expect you to rub your hands together and cackle maniacally and lurk in dark corners at every race,” Lando says.

“Obviously.” Jarv is still grinning. “Besides, Sarah will take good care of you.”

They look over where Sarah hunches over a screen, comparing analyses with a frown. She has taken over Jarv’s role as his performance engineer, and he knows she has fought tooth and nail for that position.

“Sarah is terrifying.”

Jarv snorts. “She’ll be good for you.”

Lando walks over to her, twisting his earplugs around his hands. “Ready?” he asks, noticing the way her fingers tap a pen against her thigh in an unsteady rhythm. Sarah’s answering smile is crooked.

“It’s too late to have a panic attack, isn’t it?”

Lando pretends to check his wrist for a non-existent watch and makes a thoughtful face. “If you can panic fast, you can squeeze one in during the opening ceremony.”

“Thanks for the suggestion.”

“I might join you.”

“Not fair, you’ve done this before. I’m the rookie here.”

They grin at each other. They’ve worked together since winter break, for endless testing days and training sessions, but a real grand prix takes the cake to a whole other level.

“It’s gonna be all right,” says Lando, mouth twisting into a mischievous smile. “I’m going to show you a whole new world.”

* * *

** _PIT: “OK. Radio check. Radio check, please.”_ **

** _ NOR: “I can open your eyes, take you wonder by wonder, over, sideways and under—” _ **

** _PIT: “I really should’ve seen that coming.”_ **

** _NOR: “—on a magic carpet ride. A whole new wooorld—” _ **

** _ PIT: “Thanks, Aladdin. Radio is in perfect working condition.” _ **

* * *

He hangs around the garage after his engineering meeting, perching on a table in the back and switching through Instagram stories on his phone. His mechanics are still humming the _Aladdin _soundtrack under their breath. He’s already earned a couple headlocks in retaliation.

(It’s worth a mental note: these guys are pretty sturdy people in general. Do not mess with them.)

Someone bumps his shoulder. When he looks up, Carlos is raising an eyebrow at him.

“I’ve heard the team is putting together a Google doc and collecting ideas to get back at you for making that song stuck in everyone’s head. Even my cousin is humming it.” Carlos gestures around the garage. “It’s driving me insane. It’s driving _everyone_ insane.”

Lando shrugs. “It’s not my fault Disney songs tend to be catchy. Maybe you just collectively need to _let it go._”

There’s a grin sitting in the corner of Carlos’s mouth. “You’re a menace, Lando Norris.”

He hops on the table next to Lando and puts his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. “So,” he says. “Tenth place today. Not bad.”

“Yeah.” Lando fiddles with his phone, locking and unlocking the screen. “Not good, either.”

Carlos nudges him with his foot. “Without your tyres giving out, Daniel would have never been able to get past you in the end. You’ve managed to fend him off quite nicely for a while, no? You’re much better at managing your tyres than last year already, and you’re going to learn what you’re still missing in no time.”

“I guess.” Lando looks up and when he meets Carlos’s eyes, they’re gentle. Like Carlos really believes in what he says. Like he believes in _Lando. _It tugs at a hidden part somewhere deep inside him. He swallows and looks away. “I was just being a gentleman, really. I didn’t want to ruin his home race.”

(This is what he always does: making jokes to stop himself from overthinking. Because if he’s really starting to dissect the various effects Carlos tends to have on him, he’s going to need a whole armada of psychoanalysts. And he’s not quite ready to figure out what that means.)

“That’s very generous of you.” Carlos picks up his pathetic attempt with ease. He snorts. “I would like to say that maybe you’re lucky and he’s going to return the favour, but we’re talking about Daniel here. As much as he can be a ray of sunshine, he’s pretty ruthless when he’s on track.”

“Yeah.” Lando tips his head back with a sigh. “I noticed.”

“Tío, stop overthinking. It does you no good. It’s a solid start. It’s a points finish. It’s enough for now.”

_It’s easy for you to say that, _ a voice inside Lando’s brain whispers and he hates himself for not trying to silence it. _ Sixth place. Best of the rest. Making everything look like an effortless breeze. Like it’s easy. Like I’m just too stupid to do better. _

“Yeah,” he forces himself to say. “You’re right. I’m sorry I’m being such a downer. It’s been kind of a long day.”

“It was.” Carlos nods. His foot nudges Lando’s leg, gently. A touch that says: _ you don’t have to apologise. You’re allowed to feel whatever the hell you want. _ “I have this theory that time moves differently in Australia. Like every hour we spend here is three months for the rest of the world.”

Lando mulls that over for a second. “That would actually explain why Mark Webber looks like he hasn’t been ageing a single day since he retired.”

“There you go.” Carlos catches his eyes and grins. “It’s a plausible theory.”

* * *

Their little moment in the garage ends up in the new _Unboxed _ episode and Lando’s brain almost sets itself on fire trying to figure out what exactly he should be panicking about. The fact that him and Carlos are so obviously having Moments in the way they’re leaning into each other’s space, capital-letter Moments—or the fact that Henrik, the little shit, shamelessly uses them as fodder for an ever-growing audience hungry for papaya bromance content.

(Lando’s not entirely sure about the terminology here, to be honest. Can you call it a bromance when at least one participating party has jerked off to the sound of the other attempting to interpret the Spanish national anthem in an alley outside some random London club at three a.m.?)

(He stumbled over that inspiring display of patriotic spirit when he was stalking the Instagram stories of Carlos’s friends the days after New Year’s.)

(Yeahhh. He’s not exactly proud of that fact.)

(In his defence: it was the first week of January and he had nothing but time on his hands. He really needed to put them into better use.)

Henrik has caught them from outside the garage, the camera slowly zooming in to focus on their faces. Their words can’t be heard, at least—small mercies, Lando supposes, unless the McLaren crowd tends to have a penchant for lip reading. He wouldn’t put it past them. They’d manage to dig up a tutorial from the depths of YouTube.

He watches the video what probably is an unhealthy amount of times.

It’s not gay if no one can see him taking screenshots of the way Carlos looks at him when Lando is fiddling with his phone and doesn’t meet his eyes, right?

* * *

**SAKHIR, BAHRAIN, MARCH 2020**

* * *

Lando munches on toast in the hospitality unit, phone propped against a box with paper napkins, and kind of dies a little over the latest video on the official RBR YouTube channel. It’s titled _ No Time To <s> Die </s> Race | Red Bull Racing meets 007 _ and it’s mainly shots of Max and Alex taking turns in gunning the Aston Martin V8 down various streets in Manama until they end up at a red light. Where an identical car pulls up beside them. With Daniel Craig behind the wheel, raising an eyebrow and smirking.

(Lando might be the tiniest bit jealous.)

“What are you watching?”

Carlos puts a plate stacked with mini pancakes on the table and falls into the chair beside Lando in one single, graceful motion. Lando, who’s managed to hit his head on the bathroom door twice this morning, sometimes hates him a little for the effortless way with which he moves.

He takes out one of his earphones and offers it to Carlos.

“Oh, nothing much. Just Max and Alex living their best life.”

Carlos takes the earplug and leans forward, squinting at the screen of Lando’s phone. It’s a little insulting, to be honest. He’s using his official McLaren phone to stalk RBR for the irony, which means the screen isn’t cracked and it’s generally in a pretty good condition. There’s no need to squint like that. But then again, Carlos _is _already turning twenty-six this year. Maybe his eyesight isn’t the best anymore. Maybe he should cut the old man some slack.

Carlos whistles softly. “This looks like fun.”

On screen, Daniel Craig checks his rear-view mirror to see if Max and Alex are catching up, before braking hard and manoeuvring the Aston into a side street that’s so impossibly narrow it makes Lando wince. Next thing, Max and Alex are grinning at each other before Max shifts and follows Daniel Craig down that hellhole.

(Okay, that’s a lie. Lando is jealous _as fuck.) _

The video ends with shots of the two cars chasing each other across the Bahraini desert, the sun setting on the horizon.

“Wow, okay.” Carlos leans back in his chair and the movement tugs at the earphone cord between their bodies. Lando would’ve used his AirPods but he’s a dysfunctional mess and forgot them in his room this morning. “I might be jealous.”

“As _fuck,_” Lando agrees. He steals a mini pancake from Carlos’s plate because this moment really requires comfort food that goes beyond toast. It tastes like an entire maple tree exploding inside his mouth. “Dude,” he gulps after he manages to swallow the syrupy monstrosity, “have you tried to _drown _your poor pancakes?”

Carlos grins. “Maybe I’ve known you would try to steal them. Maybe I just wanted to see your reaction.”

“The pancakes should’ve made me suspicious.” Lando bites into his last slice of toast to give his taste buds some neutral food to counterbalance. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eating pancakes on race weekends. You’re way too invested in your training regimen to appreciate the beautiful things in life.”

“Says the guy munching on toast.”

Carlos throws him an odd look Lando can’t quite decipher. Then he plucks a mini pancake from his plate and stuffs it in his mouth, all the while never breaking eye-contact with Lando. It somehow turns eating breakfast into a passive-aggressive staring contest.

“Now you’ve seen me eating pancakes on a race weekend. And besides that, you’re wrong.” There’s the odd look again. “I’m appreciating many beautiful things in life.”

For some reason, that sentence makes Lando’s stomach flutter. He resolutely swallows the last bite of his toast and tells his stomach to calm the fuck down.

“Then you, uh, should probably continue appreciating these pancakes,” says Lando. “It would be a shame to throw them away.”

Carlos mutters something about having to squeeze in an extra round of cardio, but he pushes the plate closer to Lando and they finish the pancakes together, plotting ways to convince their PRs to hire Daniel Craig for their next video shoot, too, for the rest of breakfast.

* * *

Lando pulls his balaclava off, takes his earplugs out and drags a hand through his sweat-soaked curls. He’s vibrating, feeling a little as if someone has set an entire beehive loose between his ribs, but that’s the way he always feels right after climbing out of the car. Breathless, invincible and like the whole world is sitting on the tips of his fingers, like he can set it on fire with a single, careless thought.

“Awesome job, kid!”

Smiles flash around him, thumbs-ups, and he’s caught between people clapping his back and ruffling his hair and bumping his fist.

Sarah high-fives him. “You really smashed them out there.”

Lando laughs. “I was just drivin’ drivin’.” He knows the meme is old, but he’s got a soft spot for it, all right. It’s a classic.

“You’ve got a visitor before we need you to get ready for the press,” she says, pointing over to the other side of the garage, Carlos’s side. Lando turns around. Carlos is easy to spot, standing near the data wall, race overall lazily knotted around his waist, hair falling into his face and animatedly talking to—

Holy. _Shit. _

Lando drags a hand through his hair again and mentally curses himself for not bothering to take a better look at himself in the mirror this morning. But after hitting his face on the bathroom door—_twice_—he really had other things to worry about. And he was running late. As usual.

Besides, he’s sweaty and gross from the long day at the track anyway and he’s had to fight a bad outbreak of acne for several days, so it’s not like there’s anything he could salvage. He’s got to look the facts straight in the eyes: he’s a total mess.

Carlos is the first to see him when he walks over, and his mouth twists into a grin that makes Lando’s brain whisper, _buddy, we’re fucked. _

“Hey there, man of the hour.” His accent is doing that funny thing with his h’s and r’s and he reaches out to wrap his fingers around Lando’s forearm and tug him closer. “Daniel, meet the lightning-quick menace on track who managed to qualify P6 today.”

Daniel Craig—_Daniel. Fucking._ _CRAIG._—inclines his head. “It’s an honour to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Lando breathes.

The thing is: Lando’s had kind of a James-Bond-phase when he was thirteen. His brother took him to the cinema to watch _Skyfall _back then and it just . . . spiralled from there. He’s also had a Daniel-Craig-phase at thirteen. It happened around the same time puberty started to hit and he was suddenly having Thoughts—some of them about that girl he sometimes saw on karting weekends, Jenny what’s-her-name, with her brown curls and wickedly fast laps, and some, to his complete and utter mortification, about people who were definitely leaning more towards the male end of the gender spectrum, up and including Daniel Craig in all his _Skyfall-_dishevelled glory.

The thing is: Lando went through an impressive number of crises during puberty and because his brain is a catastrophe, a mental version of Daniel Craig has witnessed almost all of them. He was the main initiator of the Great Bi Crisis and played a key role in the Gender Identity Crisis a year later, too. Lando spent some rather interesting weeks that summer holed up in his room with a lip gloss nicked from his sister’s bathroom and a pair of old heels from his mum, and up to this day there’s a small, defiant part of him insisting that he’d have made a glamorous Bond girl.

(He’s never returned that lipstick.)

The _thing _is: he really shouldn’t be thinking about any of this with Daniel Craig—_Daniel. Fucking. CRAIG._—standing in front of him. In person. Who, from up close, looks more human and less like some god-send creature designed specifically to turn Lando’s sexuality upside down, but still very much . . . hnghhh. Like, there’s _stubble. _And a handful of little scars scattered across his face. And—

He really shouldn’t be thinking about _ any of this, right here, right now, and with Daniel fucking Craig looking at him, Jesus Christ. _

“I have to admit that I’m a little jealous of you guys,” Daniel Craig says casually. “If I hadn’t just signed another contract that requires me to stay in one piece until we start shooting later this year, I’d be dying for a taste of what it feels like to sit in a real F1 car.”

“It’s not an experience that can be put into words easily,” Carlos replies, and how the heck he manages to stay eloquent in the presence of Daniel Craig will forever be put in the drawer _Mysteries of Carlos Sainz Jr. _inside Lando’s brain. “It’s a little like . . . like jumping off a cliff for fun, no? Like that moment, that split-second, that raw shock of adrenaline when your feet leave the ground and your brain catches up and realises there’s no going back, right before you plummet into the depth.”

Daniel Craig is visibly impressed. That might just have to do with the fact Carlos is pretty much sprouting poetry on the spot. It’s not a skill people usually associate with F1-drivers. “I could imagine doing this one time,” he says, “but not every other weekend like you do.”

“Eh,” says Lando (cringing internally. _Very eloquent, Norris._), “you’d get used to it.”

“Maybe.” There’s a grin on Daniel Craig’s face, _a grin aimed directly at Lando, _and both his twenty-year-old and thirteen-year-old selves go supernova with excitement. It’s too much. “Alex Albon took me on a hot lap yesterday morning, so I have a vague idea of what you are talking about. I got the speed without the risk of attending the premiere of my own movie in a full-body cast.”

“When’s the premiere going to be?” Carlos asks.

“In two and a half weeks’ time. April 8.”

“I really can’t wait to see it.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, Lando has to fight the urge to facepalm. _Wayyy to sound like an overeager fanboy, Norris. _

But Daniel Craig just laughs. “And I can’t wait to see your performance on track tomorrow. I’ve heard some great things about you, Lando Norris.”

He leaves after shaking their hands and wishing them luck for the race, and Lando is left staring after him as he weaves in and out of the paddock crowd underneath the floodlights of the Bahrain International Circuit.

Someone nudges his shoulder.

“You okay there?” Carlos’s voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. “You look a little—what’s the word again? Something with being hit by stars.”

“Starstruck,” Lando supplies automatically, and it’s a small relief to know that at least the linguistic centre of his brain is still functioning. “Have I dreamed this? Or did it just really happen? Did Daniel Craig just tell me that he’s heard great things about me?”

“Unless we’re both dreaming, he actually did.”

_“Fuck. My. Life.” _

“Come on, you little starstruck thing. You cannot stand around here all night, we need to get ready for the media.”

“How can you just—” Lando makes a vague gesture. “How can you just be so fucking _calm _about everything?”

“Ah, I’m only on the outside.” Carlos’s fingers close around Lando’s forearm and he gently steers him around and deeper inside the garage towards their respective rooms. “On the inside, I’m very much screaming.”

“Oh, thank god,” says Lando, letting himself being dragged along. “I thought I was the only one freaking out. Why was he even hanging around here? I thought the Red Bull guys have called dibs on him.”

“I’ve heard he’s made his way through the whole paddock today,” says Carlos, letting go of Lando’s arm when they’re just a couple steps away from the open doors of their rooms. The neatly folded clothes for the press pen are already waiting inside. “I guess he just wants to get to know everybody.”

_I’ve heard some great things about you, Lando Norris. _ Lando’s going to ride the high from that praise for weeks to come. He’s going to worship it. He’s going to build it a shrine. No—a goddamn cathedral.

“And no, you weren’t the only one freaking out.” Carlos braces his arm against the doorframe and grins at him. “We’re talking about Daniel Craig here. I mean, have you seen _Casino Royale?” _

* * *

It’s only later when Lando’s sitting cross-legged on crumpled-up, expensive hotel sheets, going over the notes from his engineers and hating himself for not being able to sleep like a functioning adult the night before race day, that his brain finally does the math.

Carlos, twenty-five years of age and born in 1994, was twelve years old when _Casino Royale _came out in 2006. So, almost the same age as Lando around the time _Skyfall _inadvertently led to some discoveries regarding sexual attraction on his part.

Huh.

* * *

**HANOI, VIETNAM, APRIL 2020**

* * *

The only good thing to be said about the Vietnamese grand prix is that it ends, eventually.

The city is amazing, _fuck, _Lando falls in love with Hanoi hard and fast, and he’s already looking forward to returning next year, but the race—

The race is shit. It’s a series of unfortunate events that spin out of his control and he’s limping back into the pits before he’s really had the chance to burn his name into these streets with smoking brakes and ruined tyres for the crowd to remember.

It leaves him jittery with adrenaline he didn’t get to burn on track, the taste of disappointment bitter on his tongue. The team’s all heads-up and shoulder-claps and _next time, kid, _and he’s lucky to have them, he really is, these people who work their arses off because they believe in him, and he just has to go and fuck up and let them down, doesn’t he, and there’s a voice inside him that whispers—

That whispers—

It’s tough to smile in the press pen even though he tries his hardest, making fun of himself and his mistakes and his bumpy start into the season because the alternative would be sitting down and start crying, and he’s a fucking professional, goddamnit. The questions are inevitable. P10 in Melbourne, P12 in Sakhir, DNF in Hanoi. No, he’s not happy about that. Yes, they’re working on it. Yes, he’s going back to the factory before Shanghai to figure out his issues.

* * *

There’s a voice inside him that whispers: _you are a failure. _

* * *

If it’s tough to smile in the press pen, it’s impossible to smile at Carlos when they meet in the hotel lobby to wait for the airport shuttle. It’s the first time they see each other since race prep, because Lando left the paddock as soon as his media duties were over, and no one tried to stop him. Carlos smiles when Lando trudges closer, backpack slung over one shoulder, and Lando wants to smile back, he _does, _but there’s a voice inside him, whispering, and Lando _can’t._

Carlos, bless him, doesn’t say a word.

He doesn’t say, _tough luck, _and he doesn’t say, _it’s not the end of the world, _and he doesn’t say, _next time, kid, _like Lando’s a fucking child upset about not getting ice cream on the way home from school.

Carlos just steps closer and offers one of his earplugs, raising a single eyebrow when Lando doesn’t immediately reach out and take it.

“It won’t bite.”

Lando takes the earplug. It pushes them closer together, until their shoulders are brushing, until he can smell Carlos’s expensive, on-brand aftershave. (That he probably modelled for, at some point. Because honestly, what is the _point _in giving out free skincare stuff to Carlos Sainz Jr. if you don’t get to film him climb out of a pool in slow-motion, shaking water droplets from his hair?)

Carlos is listening to some post-rock stuff Lando’s usually too impatient to care about, but right now, in this in-between moment in a random hotel lobby in night-time Hanoi, their bags and backpacks scattered around them, it’s exactly what he needs.

He’s not smiling, not exactly, not _yet, _but for a moment, things are okay. For a moment, Carlos’s music drowns out the voice whispering inside him. For a moment, he’s finally able to breathe.

Lando looks at Carlos, the word _thanks _pressing against the back of his teeth until they ache, but when he meets Carlos’s eyes, he realises he doesn’t need to say it out loud.

* * *

**SHANGHAI, CHINA, APRIL 2020**

* * *

A rainstorm tears the sky above Shanghai apart as if some furious god (or goddess, or non-binary being, Lando’s really not going to exclude anyone from the fun) has a score to settle with the city, and it completely fucks up their Friday training schedule. The FIA has already cancelled one session and keeps pushing the others back, waiting for the worst to pass, because suddenly they seem to have grown a conscience and don’t actually want to watch any of their drivers drown on the job.

(Or, more likely, want to keep the cars intact and the viewers happy. Qualifying isn’t fun to watch if half the grid is missing.)

It’s not as bad as Suzuka last year, but it’s close.

Because they don’t know if they can run through a whole training session or not, it also means everybody’s stuck in the garage, periodically checking weather forecasts and news updates and statistics from past races to at least have _something _they can work with, and otherwise being bored out of their minds.

So this is how it starts: with Lando being bored out of his mind.

Which, honestly, is how most of his stupid ideas come to life.

He’s perched on a table, headphones on, eyes closed, visualising the track and going over the race in his mind. His fingers twitch whenever he mentally shifts, lips moving around the syllables of _throttle _and _brakes _and _turn 4. _

Across the garage, Carlos is doing the same, and when Lando cracks an eye open to check on him—_well, shit._ Carlos is leaning against the wall, head tipped back, eyes closed, mouth hanging slightly open, and honestly, there should be a law against this kind of thing. He shouldn’t be allowed to look sexy when he’s just running through mental routines in his head. As if Lando really needed more fuel for his fantasies. As if they weren’t already out of hand, happily supplying an ever-growing vault of Carlos-Sainz-Jr.-related pornography in his brain.

Earlier, when they’d just gotten the news about the cancelled first session, the PR-team staged an impromptu challenge for the YouTube channel to at least get something productive done on this day.

It’s a little messier than their usual challenges, a little less set-up, a little more spontaneous, with the Spanish flag in Carlos’s driver room as background, with racing overalls and dishevelled helmet hair. They got a stack of cards with the names of the other drivers and were told to take turns impersonating them with the other guessing who they were supposed to be.

Lando’s side is still aching with how much he laughed.

Romain was easy even though Carlos’s attempts at a French accent can only be described as _pathetic, _Lance was surprisingly challenging, Sebastian a no-brainer, and by the time Lando drew Lewis’s name, he was giggling so hard he almost wheezed himself to death before he managed to choke out, “I have the best fans.”

(He would’ve almost gone for, _my tyres are dead, _but there’s like, a teeny tiny chance Lewis might actually see this at some point, and the thing is, Lando’s probably stupid, but he’s not mean.)

The video is a total mess and Henrik will have to edit the heck out of it because Carlos started swearing, _a lot, _when he was stuck on Lando’s impersonation of Kimi Räikkönen, and as much as Lando prays those particular five minutes of his life will not end up on the internet for the world to see, he knows it’s a hopeless thing to wish for.

He taps his feet against the leg of the table in sync with the _throttle _and _brakes _commands in his mind and his fingers are still twitching when he shifts into the chicane. He’s run over the track nine times now. It’s getting old.

This is how it starts: Lando takes his headphones off.

The first thing he notices is the music—the last beats of _Under Pressure _fading out to be replaced with the unmistakable riff of _Another One Bites the Dust. _A fucking _Queen _ playlist because apparently, they’re back in the eighties now, travelling in time without Lando noticing, amped to full volume to drown out the drumming noise of the rain.

The second thing he notices is the way people move—Sarah bobbing her head to the rhythm, Jamie kicking his feet in time with the beat, Nik singing along as he bends over the car to check something.

When _Don’t Stop Me Now _starts playing, Lando unlocks his phone and taps the camera icon.

“Show me ya moves,” he yells across the garage, and it looks like everyone was just one step away from descending into insanity today, because they only hesitate for a second before getting into it. _Really _getting into it.

Lando zooms in on the MCL35 in all her papaya orange glory at the line, _“I’m a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva,” _and his mechanics turn their heads on time with, _“I’m gonna go go go, there’s no stopping me.” _

He almost drops his phone because he’s giggling so hard and he swirls through the garage and films people lip-syncing and Jamie spinning Sarah in a circle and everyone going crazy at, _ “that’s why they call me Mister Fahrenheit, I’m travelling at the speed of light—” _

Lando sidles up next to Carlos, who’s both shaking his head and shaking with suppressed laughter, flips the camera so it’s facing them both and sings along, _ “I’m a rocket ship on my way to Mars, on a collision course, I am a satellite, I’m out of control—” _

He wiggles his eyebrows in a challenge, and Carlos is still shaking his head, fighting the grin trying to steal across his face, but he finally gives in, voice low, his stupidly hot accent turning Lando’s body into a liquid mess when he sings, _ “I am a sex machine ready to reload, like an atom bomb, about to oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh explode.” _

Carlos closes his eyes and tips his head back at the last, drawn-out _oh, _and—Jesus fucking Christ. Lando needs a moment to reassess his whole world view, because if Carlos was looking sexy before, now he’s positively _obscene._ Lando swallows, suddenly aware of his flushed cheeks and how close they are standing and how uncomfortably tight his fireproofs cling to his sweaty skin.

He really, really didn’t think this through.

He doesn’t know what his face is doing, but with his luck it has twisted into an expression that writes ‘I’VE BEEN HAVING A BONER FOR MY HOT SPANISH TEAMMATE FOR THE LAST SIXTEEN MONTHS’ across his features. In capital letters. And papaya orange.

Carlos is looking at him, eyes dark, and Lando’s blushing so hard now it feels as if his head is on fire. Belatedly, he realises that he’s still filming—_shit_—and he pushes himself off the wall, flipping the camera and grabbing his phone so hard his knuckles turn white.

_ Smart move, Norris. If you can’t stop making heart-eyes at your strictly off-limits teammate, at least have the decency to not record the whole thing. _

He forces himself to take a deep breath. He can’t allow himself to hyperventilate and let everything spiral out of control. Not here, anyway. Not now.

The team gathers for the great finale, bellowing out, _“Don’t stop me, don’t stop me, don’t stop me, hey, hey, hey,” _and Lando ignores that he can feel Carlos’s stare on the back of his neck like little shocks of lightning, takes another deep breath, and plasters a grin on his face that feels so forced it hurts his cheeks.

It doesn’t take long for the grin to turn real, though, not with Jarv laughing and the mechanics dancing and Sarah holding out her hand to twirl him through the last, fading notes of the song. He grins at her, he grins at the whole team, at these people who are ridiculous and awesome and just crazy enough to follow along with his stupid ideas even though they really should know better.

They’re his weird grid family and he wouldn’t change them for the world.

* * *

He posts the video on his Instagram—after he’s replayed Carlos singing about being a sex machine an unhealthy amount of times while telling himself it’s for scientific research. He deems his own red-faced reaction no worse than in any of the countless PR videos they’ve done together, which, upon closer examination, is a little telling.

Lando thinks, _so what? _

He’s going to embrace the fact that he seems to spend most of their joined PR time staring at Carlos like he’s hung the moon.

He waits for the a-okay from above before posting, for everyone to be assured that he won’t accidentally reveal too much about the inner workings of the garage if he goes public. (Lando loves being an F1 driver, he really does, it’s a fucking dream come true, but Jesus, it turns his life into a complicated mess sometimes.)

Henrik texts him a thumbs-up to signal that the coast is clear, adds, **i thought the unboxed vids were my job **and a side-eyes emoji, and the official F1 account reposts him within five minutes.

The way Lando’s juggling being both a driver and a fucking PR genius? Hell yeah. He’s going to ask for a pay rise.

* * *

** THE AIRSPACE SOMEWHERE ABOVE THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, APRIL 2020 **

* * *

Lando has ninety-nine problems and having a hot Spanish teammate with flawless skin and incredible hair are all of them.

The humming of the plane engines sets the perfect soothing background noise for the chaos inside his head. He sighs and wiggles his toes, staring at his mismatched socks. It’s still another three and a half hours until they’ll touch down in Heathrow, London, and he probably should be trying to sleep them off, but his squirrel brain keeps dragging his thoughts in circles and banging pots and pans inside his skull.

Being able to focus on tiny details with deadly accuracy is a top-notch skill when he’s in the car, doing his job, but when he’s having a bit of a personal crisis it usually just serves to make things ten times worse.

Sometimes Lando wishes he could take a break from himself.

There’s a hint of sunrise outside, dusting the airplane wings in pink and purple and gold, and he pulls his phone from the pocket of his oversized hoodie to take a picture. He adds it to his Instagram story, thumb hovering over the keyboard for a while, until he finally just adds a Union Jack emoji and leaves it at that.

He taps through some other stories, more out of habit than interest, too exhausted and too hyper at the same time to muster up the energy to care. But a flash of his own face makes him stop, holding the screen.

Carlos has put up a selfie from Dubai International Airport. The angle is weird—Carlos’s own face squished into the bottom left corner, the rest of the screen taken up by Lando sprawled across several chairs in the waiting area, head resting on his backpack, sleepily blinking at the camera and throwing up a peace sign.

It probably says something about his mental state that he doesn’t remember this at all.

Carlos has added, **parting ways with sleepyhead soon, will miss u**, in the corner, and honestly, sometimes Lando questions the universe if Carlos Sainz Jr. was put on this earth specifically to turn Lando’s life upside down whenever he thinks he’s finally got the hang of things. Because this—this is unexpectedly sweet, and utterly stupid (because the fans read into anything and they’ll certainly read into _this), _and it’s just like Carlos to walk around and flaunt in everyone’s face that he _cares. _

It takes a special kind of bravery, one Lando’s very clearly lacking, because he already panics when he’s liked several of Carlos’s Instagram posts in a row, terrified that it’ll send the wrong sort of message to the wrong kind of people.

* * *

Things Lando sucks at: acting straight.

Things Lando’s career depends on: acting straight.

Yeah, he might have a little problem there.

* * *

They had to say goodbye to each other during their stop in Dubai. Carlos is on a plane heading to Madrid right now to spend some days with his family at the wedding of some distant cousin twice-removed, because he earned himself a respectable P7 in the mess that was the Shanghai grand prix in the rain, and Lando—

Well.

Lando’s on his way to the factory to spend hours in the sim and meet up with his engineers to figure out if they need to change the set-up on the car because all he managed was P11, and that’s only because Kevin got a penalty that pushed him back two places.

He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars burst behind his eyelids and sighs deeply.

This is a fact: his season has been rubbish so far.

It doesn’t matter that he’s becoming a bit of a pro at the whole qualifying thing if he screws up every single race. Quali doesn’t earn you points in the ugly midfield scramble for a slightly better position with a substantially better price tag.

This is another fact: Carlos is slowly turning from a minor distraction into a major problem.

Which, to be honest, is a little unfair on Carlos. Carlos is doing nothing wrong. Carlos is just being his usual self with his stupid jokes and his beautiful laughter and his flawless skin and his incredible hair and the way Lando’s name rolls off his tongue with that _accent _that sets Lando’s nerves on fire and all the casual touching that’s going on between them and now, apparently, his unexpectedly sweet Instagram stories and—

It’s a little too much to handle, at times.

And yes, okay, Lando _is_ a racing driver and he _is_ being paid to handle high-adrenaline, stress-inducing situations on a daily basis, so he really should stop whining, but the thing is—

The thing is, sometimes the harsh reality behind the thumbs-ups and the petrol smell and the plastic smiles serves as a painful reminder that he’s just a twenty-year-old kid trying to catch up with an accelerated life that’s spiralling more and more out of his control.

He can’t fuck this up, okay, he _can’t, _he needs his team and their endless enthusiasm and unwavering conviction that they’re going to achieve great things even on the days where he stops believing.

Being queer and being a racing driver are still mutually exclusive, and as much as it makes him want to rage and scream and tear the world to shreds with the unfairness of it all, he’s going to have to play by the rules if he wants to keep his seat at the table with the big boys.

He takes a deep breath.

Okay. New strategy.

When he’s back in the UK, he’s going to shove every thought about Carlos into the deepest closet—pun intended, mental self-five—he can find inside his brain. He’s going to figure out his issues and he’s going to fix his mess of a season.

Damn straight.

Or, as straight as he can manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs mentioned are [A Whole New World ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1Rb9hC4JY) from the _Aladdin_ soundtrack and Queen’s [Don’t Stop Me Now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM) if anyone wants to have them stuck in their head. 
> 
> The names of the McLaren people are almost entirely made up because at some point I had to impose a limit on my online-stalking-but-calling-it-research tendencies. 
> 
> (edit in February 2020 because I forgot to mention that the Daniel Craig movie is the James Bond movie _No Time To Die_ coming out <strike>in April</strike> at some point this year, like a dumbass)


End file.
